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Summary: Evelyn contemplates the differences between Rafe and Danny, but decides that...well, you just have to read on and see what she decides, eh? Set between the incident in the parachute hanger and Rafe's return.
Reviews are welcome, as is criticism, constructive or otherwise.
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Betty once called them fire and ice, and she had nodded along with the rest of the girls at what had seemed like an apt description of the two pilots. But now, now that she knows the both of them better than anyone, apart from the two of them, ever will, she's come to the realisation that that description may not be entirely true.
Rafe is her first. Sure, she's had boyfriends before, but they were nothing more than summer flings and childhood crushes. He's her first love, and what a love it was. She smiles as she remembers the way she used to sit on the beach and write letters that, upon second reading, sounded like they had been plucked from the depths of the cheesy romance novels that some girls are so fond of. Still, she meant every word and probably still does.
Danny...well, he's different. The circumstances under which they came together were hardly foreseeable and certainly not a good foundation for any relationship. Still, she loves him with a ferocity that even she did not anticipate; much like 2 clouds blown together cling desperately to one another before the same winds tear them apart once more.
But she has digressed. What brought her to the realisation that Betty was wrong? Because now, now that she knows them, she's realised that they aren't so different after all. At first glance, they do seem to be polar opposites of one another. Rafe has an easy charm and cockiness that just flows right off him. His personality fills the room, and she's sure that he's the life of any party. When she met him during the eye exam, he was all that she could see, not until Danny butted in and asked for his turn.
Like she said, she hadn't really noticed Danny at first. The first time he came to her attention was during the dance the night before Rafe left. From the moment the nurses and pilots formed one group, laughing and drinking together, he had barely said one word, choosing instead to watch his drink swirl in its glass. When the band started playing Crossroad Blues, Rafe had asked him whether now would be a good time to start dancing, probably in an attempt to strike up a conversation. His reply was a shrug and a poisonous "If you want to dance, you'd be up by now, regardless of what I think." When everyone had gotten up to dance, only Danny and Sandra were left at the table, and she watched sympathetically as her friend tried to get him to ask her to dance too. All she got from his was a nervous "Hi." At first, she wondered what Rafe saw in the morose cad, but then, later that night as Rafe kissed her goodbye, she understood his gloomy mood. Where Rafe is like a ten-piece orchestra in the middle of the room, the centre-piece of attention and subject of conversation, Danny is like a solo flute or violin, something one comes to appreciate after the round of introductions to friends of friends and meaningless chatter. They're different on the surface, like different musical instruments, but they operate based on the same principles.
Ask anyone and they will tell you that Rafe is a rebel; that he revels in flipping off the army brass. It's true. He doesn't like orders, doesn't like being told what to and when and he especially hates being told that he cannot do something. Tell him that a certain stunt is too dangerous to pull off and he'll make sure that you're watching when he does. In contrast, Danny seems like the sane one, the one with common sense enough to temper his recklessness. It takes a little while to realise that Danny isn't one for following the rules either. It's just that, like everything else about him, it takes a second, careful look to discover what he's actually doing.
Take the issue of his hair, for example. It's too long in front to comply with regulations, and she's heard his C.O. tell him off about it on more than one occasion. So, she's quite surprised when he shows her an old photo of Rafe and himself and she sees that his hair used to be shorter. When asked about it, he shrugs. Then, after a while, he says "Why does the force care about the length of pilots' hair anyway? My hair's longer than regulations allow and I can fly better than most of those buzz-cut drones. Don't see why I need to comply with meaningless rules," and she learns something new about him. He doesn't like being told what to do, like Rafe, but he just has a different way of showing it.
She's heard stories about the stunts Rafe has pulled, mostly from Danny. She knows from the way he "commandeered" the little speedboat to take her to the ship that night in New York that he's the kind who will take any risk, and get away with it most of the time. She wonders, even now, whether he was killed that way; taking a risk that, this time, didn't pay off. But she's never seen him fly, not like Danny. Sometimes, in the evenings, she goes to the base and stands quietly in a corner where no one will notice her, because that's when he likes to fly. He starts off the same, flying high up and disappearing into the clouds and she wonders what he's trying to do, or where he's trying to go, but soon enough, he comes down. Gooz has learnt not to fly in the evenings, but sometimes he can't avoid it; as soon as he takes off, Danny is there, tailing him, cutting him off when he tries to turn, flying circles around him and being a general pain in the ass. She wonders what that is all about, since she cannot detect any animosity between the two on the ground.
The girls never neglect to point out that she's twice lucky in terms of the good looks of her boys. While she always modestly points out that Gooz is well-built too, and that Red has such an interesting shade of hair, she knows that they are right. She noticed Rafe's good looks the moment she laid eyes on him; he was ruggedly handsome and he knew it. His hair was always slicked back in a Humphrey Bogart style that everyone else tries to imitate but fail to, and he has that cleft in his chin that makes him look oh-so-manly. She laughs out loud when she recalls an incident during a trip to the Coney Island pier. A young girl had been eyeing Rafe the whole time they were there, and her hat had gone flying when a particularly strong gust of wind blew through. Being the gracious southern gentleman that he was, Rafe rescued the renegade hat and returned it to the girl, who had blushed like a radish when he handed it to her. They walked away, and when Evelyn turned around to get a second glimpse of the girl, she was clutching the hat to her chest and half-dancing excitedly on the pier, a reaction she thought was reserved for the likes of Clark Gable and Jimmy Stewart.
In contrast, she only noticed Danny's sheer beauty when they had coffee together after running into the each other while escaping the movie. Unlike Rafe's chiselled features, his friend's countenance is more aquiline, more delicate. His eyelashes, longer and thicker than any woman's, draw attention to his eyes; in her years of service, she has looked into the eyes of countless young men and women, but she has never seen eyes as beautiful and sad as his. She sometimes wonders which feature of his she likes best; his lithe frame, his too-long dark hair or maybe that mischievous smile that lights up his face sometimes. It seems a little unfair at times that he has the supposedly impossible beauty and brains combination, but every time that thought runs through her head she remembers the things he's lived through and quickly realises that she'll never begrudge him any of the good fortune life throws his way; he deserves every little bit of it and more besides.
Perhaps the way in which they differ was the way each responded to her. Rafe was always trying to sweep her off her feet, often with great success. He'd sourced out rare French champagne for her, taken her on picnics to the countryside, taken her on a battleship...the list was endless. And when she was standing there, marvelling in the sights and sounds and that feeling in her heart, he'd slip an arm around her, as if to say that he was the only one who could put such a sparkle in her eye. To this day, he was the only one. When they'd dance or walk, his hand would slip from her waist and slide slowly lower, and they both knew that the purpose of this was not to feel her up but so that she'd react and he could throw some smart-ass comment at her that would make them both laugh.
On the other hand, Danny constantly touches her. When she'd said that to Betty, the girl had giggled and waggled her eyebrows at Evelyn, which made her surprisingly angry because she hadn't meant it like that. Whenever they are together, he'd be in constant contact with her; his fingers brushing lightly against hers, sitting shoulder to shoulder with her. He likes to hug her. He likes to greet her with a kiss on the cheek. He likes to lie with his head in her lap, and once almost purred in sheer contentment when she started threading her fingers through his hair. It was then that she understood his craving for human contact. Apart from Rafe and now her, he doesn't allow anyone into his personal space. Where Rafe used to have the company slinging their arms around his shoulders, proudly boasting about their ace, the most Danny gets is a friendly pat on the back. She didn't blame them; how could anyone be comfortable with throwing their arms around a guy who never really let his guard down around them?
They also differ in the way each touched her. Rafe used to occasionally loop and arm around her waist or take her hand in his; it was all very movie-like. It felt so right, like they were somehow made for each other. It was all so movie-like, and she would shiver in anticipation waiting for him to place his hand over hers on the dinner table. Things were very different with Danny; he is what she has come to describe as a serial cuddler. Given enough time and space, he would find a position, limbs entwined with hers, that allowed him to lay his head over her heart and her to rest in the crook of his arm, that feels a lot more comfortable than it should. She loves this too, but in a different way. Whilst it was about chemistry and the thrill of the chase with Rafe, this is about the display of affection and reassurance of not-loneliness that somehow is sweet and sad at the same time.
So, yeah, they aren't quite fire and ice. They are more like difference sides of the same coin; same of opinion, but different in execution. The question in everyone's minds, which she knew even if they never asked, is who she prefers; Rafe, who she loved with wild abandon, or Danny, whom she loves with all her heart? She doesn't know, doesn't want to know, because it's like asking her which hand she likes better. No matter which one she has, there will always be a place in her heart for the other.